FoxtrotZero
Jr Member
So, a few of you have probably seen me tyrading about 3D printers lately. A few of you might also know my first real cosplay project was a (failed) attempt at an NCR Veteran Ranger. Previously, I'd attempted the vest, but never had a solution for the mask and helmet. All that's about to change.
The concept is to build the base of the mask and helmet in typical pepakura fashion - cardstock, resin, fiberglass, bondo, repetitive motion injuries, you know the drill. Before, my attempts were thwarted (aside from the fact that I was entirely new) by the relatively high-detail pieces of the snout, speaker, and filter. That's where the 3D printer comes in. With some autocad magic, I can recreate the parts in high-detail and have them 3D printed, for free, at my University's library, so long as the part takes less than 3 hours.
This is the pepakura model I have, which aside from being the base of the mask, I'll be using to get a sense of dimensions when I model my parts. Actual details are based on a combination of screenshots, concept art, fan art, and real-life builds. It might not be 100% authentic, but by the time I'm done, I hope it'll be 100% badass.
This build will be going a bit slowly. I'm limited to one print per week, and I have several parts that need to be printed. I'd like to start on Pepakura this week (I go on Spring Break tomorrow) but the fact is I'm ridiculously behind in my Calculus class, and I'm going to be spending a lot of time studying, so we'll see if I can get anything done. That said, the fact that I've started a build thread means I've actually got something to show you.
Here we have the original model I made for the Filter. I did it in Autodesk Inventor, because I have fond memories of its interface, and I haven't used it in a while (my university uses Creo Parametric and SolidWorks). I'm... starting to realize why it isn't an industry standard. However, it works well enough. "Works well enough" is actually the spirit of this entire project, as I kind of made it up as I went, and as far as "good CAD practice" goes, this model probably scores a zero. You can also see some of my reference material.
Well I sent it in, and today it was printed. I got to see it get started before my physics lab, and swung by to pick it up after I got out, before catching my train home. It's a little difficult to see, because they recently switched to a pitch-black filament, but it came out pretty well. Above all else, I'm surprised by how sturdy the thing is, having a typical thickness of 2mm. The whole thing is lightly textured, printed with a 0.2mm resolution, and particularly since it was printed upside-down to save on filler material.
I've taken to trying to sand it down some. I was suprised that all of the features on the outside rim didn't require any support material at all. The mesh material in the indentations (it's supposed to be a square pattern of 1.5mm circles spaced 0.5mm apart) didn't come out so hot. I designed it assuming I'd be able to make use of a 0.1mm resolution, but that would take way, way too long. It's worth noting that the mesh looks particularly bad from this angle because there's still a bunch of support material (like I said, that side was printed face-down) in there that I haven't bothered snipping out yet.
It's also worth noting that I intend to deviate from the standard NCR Veteran Ranger outfit. I'd like to make it more reminiscent of the Advanced Riot Gear from the Lonesome Road DLC, pictured below, but it has a completely different speaker and filter setup that I don't have source material for and I'm not really willing to attempt. Since there's already so many variants of the armour included with the DLC, I was going to do a bit of a hybridized appearance, where I effectively have the regular mask, with double filters and the bridged eyepiece (I'll probably also attempt to model the detail differences in the helmet).
Since I'm on the topic of things I intend to change, I'm planning on completely remaking the filter piece. I'm going to make the edge sharper and less rounded, with a larger bulge near the cutout, much like in the picture below. I'll also be upping the hole pattern to 3mm in a diagonal pattern with 1.5mm between, and using six larger perforated sections (instead of the current ten) so they're appropriately visible. To be even more technical about my plans, I'm going to make the perforation 2mm thick and the surface layer 1mm (as opposed to the current configuration, which is vice versa) to give more of that stamped metal appearance.
The next part I print, however, is probably going to be the speaker piece on the front of the mask. I'm not the first person to do this. If I remember correctly, Kommisar (whose build is legend on the RPF, from what I can tell) had a friend rapid prototype (read: 3D print) this piece since he couldn't quite make it himself. I've pretty near emulated the appearance, as such, and with any luck the small squares (which have the same spacing as the holes, but the pleasant quality of needing to look square) won't come out like crap. I guess we'll see. I'd hate to discover this doesn't work, either, as I feel there's less room to compromise here.
That center piece exists in the original material, I really don't know why it was excluded in the pepakura file. I'm also in the process of modeling the antenna, but that's a little trickier, particularly since I don't know exactly how I'm going to mount it (if you look at the pepakura assembly above, it goes through this strange indentation in the flashlight box. I've literally never seen this anywhere else, and it's extremely strange, so I'm going to have to figure out my own mount that comes out at a different angle without interfering with any of that stuff).
Since this is my OP and I feel entitled to rant about my intentions: If I ever finish this project (and I'm fairly certain I will - depsite the fact that I should be working on my ODST build, I started this because it's simpler, shorter-term, something I've intended to figure out for much longer, and gives me an excuse to involve that 3D printer) I'll probably consider tackling the vest again. If I do so, I'll probably make it out of two layers of really thin foam (something like 3/16, depends on what I can get my hands on - no more of that 1/2in EVA crap) - one layer to be a base, and another one to give the appearance of the separate plates. This should make the vest thin and flexible enough to move in, as well as not give me the problem where the chestplates want to turn me into a dark gardevoir cosplay every time I stretch my arms out.
Remember when I said I'm deviating from the Veteran Ranger norm? Instead of flat black, I'd like to give the vest the Desert Ranger camoflage scheme (which is a three-tone desert camoflage) and from there I'll find things to add, like belt pouches and kneepads. I'd like to have some weaponry - a 5.56mm pistol (that's the GRA base version - in the game without DLC, it exists only as "That Gun") and maybe a Gauss Rifle (I love the gauss rifle so much, but the proportions on the thing seem so ridiculously awkward I don't know if that's practical without trying to handwave a lot of modifications).
Anyway, if you read all that, you must really be interested. This project is probably going to be slow-going for the time being, so don't expect a lot of updates, but I'm going to try to keep on it and keep you guys informed (particularly any time I get a chance to post a picture, text posts are kinda bland).
The concept is to build the base of the mask and helmet in typical pepakura fashion - cardstock, resin, fiberglass, bondo, repetitive motion injuries, you know the drill. Before, my attempts were thwarted (aside from the fact that I was entirely new) by the relatively high-detail pieces of the snout, speaker, and filter. That's where the 3D printer comes in. With some autocad magic, I can recreate the parts in high-detail and have them 3D printed, for free, at my University's library, so long as the part takes less than 3 hours.
This is the pepakura model I have, which aside from being the base of the mask, I'll be using to get a sense of dimensions when I model my parts. Actual details are based on a combination of screenshots, concept art, fan art, and real-life builds. It might not be 100% authentic, but by the time I'm done, I hope it'll be 100% badass.
This build will be going a bit slowly. I'm limited to one print per week, and I have several parts that need to be printed. I'd like to start on Pepakura this week (I go on Spring Break tomorrow) but the fact is I'm ridiculously behind in my Calculus class, and I'm going to be spending a lot of time studying, so we'll see if I can get anything done. That said, the fact that I've started a build thread means I've actually got something to show you.
Here we have the original model I made for the Filter. I did it in Autodesk Inventor, because I have fond memories of its interface, and I haven't used it in a while (my university uses Creo Parametric and SolidWorks). I'm... starting to realize why it isn't an industry standard. However, it works well enough. "Works well enough" is actually the spirit of this entire project, as I kind of made it up as I went, and as far as "good CAD practice" goes, this model probably scores a zero. You can also see some of my reference material.
Well I sent it in, and today it was printed. I got to see it get started before my physics lab, and swung by to pick it up after I got out, before catching my train home. It's a little difficult to see, because they recently switched to a pitch-black filament, but it came out pretty well. Above all else, I'm surprised by how sturdy the thing is, having a typical thickness of 2mm. The whole thing is lightly textured, printed with a 0.2mm resolution, and particularly since it was printed upside-down to save on filler material.
I've taken to trying to sand it down some. I was suprised that all of the features on the outside rim didn't require any support material at all. The mesh material in the indentations (it's supposed to be a square pattern of 1.5mm circles spaced 0.5mm apart) didn't come out so hot. I designed it assuming I'd be able to make use of a 0.1mm resolution, but that would take way, way too long. It's worth noting that the mesh looks particularly bad from this angle because there's still a bunch of support material (like I said, that side was printed face-down) in there that I haven't bothered snipping out yet.
It's also worth noting that I intend to deviate from the standard NCR Veteran Ranger outfit. I'd like to make it more reminiscent of the Advanced Riot Gear from the Lonesome Road DLC, pictured below, but it has a completely different speaker and filter setup that I don't have source material for and I'm not really willing to attempt. Since there's already so many variants of the armour included with the DLC, I was going to do a bit of a hybridized appearance, where I effectively have the regular mask, with double filters and the bridged eyepiece (I'll probably also attempt to model the detail differences in the helmet).
Since I'm on the topic of things I intend to change, I'm planning on completely remaking the filter piece. I'm going to make the edge sharper and less rounded, with a larger bulge near the cutout, much like in the picture below. I'll also be upping the hole pattern to 3mm in a diagonal pattern with 1.5mm between, and using six larger perforated sections (instead of the current ten) so they're appropriately visible. To be even more technical about my plans, I'm going to make the perforation 2mm thick and the surface layer 1mm (as opposed to the current configuration, which is vice versa) to give more of that stamped metal appearance.
The next part I print, however, is probably going to be the speaker piece on the front of the mask. I'm not the first person to do this. If I remember correctly, Kommisar (whose build is legend on the RPF, from what I can tell) had a friend rapid prototype (read: 3D print) this piece since he couldn't quite make it himself. I've pretty near emulated the appearance, as such, and with any luck the small squares (which have the same spacing as the holes, but the pleasant quality of needing to look square) won't come out like crap. I guess we'll see. I'd hate to discover this doesn't work, either, as I feel there's less room to compromise here.
That center piece exists in the original material, I really don't know why it was excluded in the pepakura file. I'm also in the process of modeling the antenna, but that's a little trickier, particularly since I don't know exactly how I'm going to mount it (if you look at the pepakura assembly above, it goes through this strange indentation in the flashlight box. I've literally never seen this anywhere else, and it's extremely strange, so I'm going to have to figure out my own mount that comes out at a different angle without interfering with any of that stuff).
Since this is my OP and I feel entitled to rant about my intentions: If I ever finish this project (and I'm fairly certain I will - depsite the fact that I should be working on my ODST build, I started this because it's simpler, shorter-term, something I've intended to figure out for much longer, and gives me an excuse to involve that 3D printer) I'll probably consider tackling the vest again. If I do so, I'll probably make it out of two layers of really thin foam (something like 3/16, depends on what I can get my hands on - no more of that 1/2in EVA crap) - one layer to be a base, and another one to give the appearance of the separate plates. This should make the vest thin and flexible enough to move in, as well as not give me the problem where the chestplates want to turn me into a dark gardevoir cosplay every time I stretch my arms out.
Remember when I said I'm deviating from the Veteran Ranger norm? Instead of flat black, I'd like to give the vest the Desert Ranger camoflage scheme (which is a three-tone desert camoflage) and from there I'll find things to add, like belt pouches and kneepads. I'd like to have some weaponry - a 5.56mm pistol (that's the GRA base version - in the game without DLC, it exists only as "That Gun") and maybe a Gauss Rifle (I love the gauss rifle so much, but the proportions on the thing seem so ridiculously awkward I don't know if that's practical without trying to handwave a lot of modifications).
Anyway, if you read all that, you must really be interested. This project is probably going to be slow-going for the time being, so don't expect a lot of updates, but I'm going to try to keep on it and keep you guys informed (particularly any time I get a chance to post a picture, text posts are kinda bland).